Thomas Pascoe worked in both the Lloyd's of London insurance market and in corporate finance before joining the Telegraph. He writes about the financial markets. His email is thomas.pascoe@telegraph.co.uk and his Twitter address is @PascoeTelegraph

In politics, as in life, class matters

It shouldn't matter how you're born, but it does. The British class system is still the nation's primary point of cleavage, and the almost total absence of the lower-middle and working classes from the Cabinet is one of the key reasons it seems to have a hard time distinguishing what is important in the wider country from what is dinner-party fodder in Highgate.

Changing demographics could have made it that the main friction in British society came between different age groups, races or belief systems, but this hasn't happened. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, the almost total absence of the old, ethnic minorities, and the overtly religious from positions of influence has kept them from being identified with particular policies in, say, the way that an elite cadre of public schoolboys seem synonymous with the Number 10 machinery. Secondly, these groups also tend to think in terms of class when it comes to the ballot box. The continuing popularity of class-based parties, including Ukip, which appeals to the disenfranchised lower-middle class, tells of a society which still views itself in this way. If it didn't, the Respect Party would hold half the seats in central south London.

The class division tints every issue in British politics. Take the Government's income tax policies. On the one hand the working class see the decision to lower the additional rate from 50pc to 45pc as the upper classes awarding themselves a pay rise. The middle classes look at the decision to lower the upper rate tax threshold from the first £35,000 over the taxable allowance in 2011/12 to £32,010 in 2013/14 as an attempt to pull up the drawbridge by the same people. If the increase in the personal allowance is thought of at all, both see it as the politics of guilt from a privileged elite.

Given these preoccupations, a Cabinet which tends to be drawn from one social strata (only one non-university educated member, for instance) will always have a problem with policy presentation. A more pressing concern, however, is policy content.

For all the glib statements made about Bob Halfon now writing the Budget (following the adoption of his fuel duty freeze campaign last year, and the sudden popularity of his 10p tax rate campaign), he has shown an uncanny knack of unearthing campaigning topics which rest on Tory principles and which resonate with the wider public. While his background (independent school, Russell Group university) is typical Tory, there is enough that is different – mild disability, Jewish-Italian immigrant family – to have given him a different take on life and its challenges to the typical model. It is this fresh perspective which the head of the party sometimes lacks – its preoccupations, particularly in social policy, are Notting Hill, not Nottingham, and fail to grip the nation as a result.

This is not to say there are no Conservative MPs with different backgrounds. One working-class woman briefed the PM on the "I'm a Tory, not a toff" campaign she wanted to run in the North prior to the last party conference. "Mmm," said Dave, who never got back to her. Another backbencher told him the party needed to be angrier, reflecting public fury that the irresponsibility of the Labour years has lumbered us all with declining living standards. "Mmm," said Dave, who never got back to him, either. A party agent in the Midlands who explained to him before Christmas that he was now unable to deliver a batch of freshly printed campaign leaflets because the entire constituency association had resigned over gay marriage got the same response.

Because someone of Dave's class and circumstances feels mildly embarrassed by these ideas, they never get an airing in his thoughts. That's not problematic in itself, but because he is surrounded by very similar people in the positions that count, they seldom get an airing at a senior level at all. It is only when the backbenches explode with rage that the antennae really pick up the warning signals.

Oddly for the party of the establishment, the great Conservative leaders have never been insiders. Disraeli, Churchill, Thatcher; none was ever part of the elite-within-an-elite from which the party's leaders are usually drawn. When another reshuffle does arrive, Dave may want to consider the benefits of diversity.